October 6, 2004
Environmental Groups Demand Cape Wind Impact Statement
Groups file FOIA request to receive information
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6—Ten of New England's most prominent environmental groups have filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the release of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Cape Wind project, as well as the correspondence surrounding the document and its continued delay.
"We are deeply disturbed by this latest round of delays in releasing the DEIS," said Toni Hicks, Conservation Law Foundation Staff Attorney. "We know that the document has been completed, and we believe that the Army Corps is legally required to make the long-awaited environmental data and analysis available to the public ASAP."
CLF along with the Union of Concerned Scientists, MASSPIRG, Clean Power Now, HealthLink, Wenham Lake Watershed Association, Massachusetts Climate Action Network, SmartPower, Cape and Islands Self-Reliance, and Clean Water Action have all sent FOIA requests in light of the recent news that the Cape Wind DEIS has been sitting on a Pentagon official's desk in Washington, D.C. without any momentum toward public release. The FOIA letters were addressed to the Army Corps, the US Department of Defense, and the Department of the Army.
"The debate about the pros and cons of the Cape Wind project has gone on too long in the abstract. The Army Corps of Engineers has finished the draft EIS, and the Pentagon appears to be keeping it from the public. We hope the request for information that these groups are making today will shake the draft EIS loose or at a minimum explain why the Pentagon is holding it up. Playing politics with information is bad policy." Nathanael Greene, Senior Policy Analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council said.
Spokesmen for the Army Corps of Engineers initially said the Cape Wind DEIS would be released by the end of August. Then, they changed the expected release to early September.
"The Union of Concerned Scientists has repeatedly called for the immediate release of the draft Environmental Impact Statement, which is long overdue," said Deborah Donovan, UCS Senior Energy Analyst. "The public's access to important facts about the proposed Cape Wind project has been unnecessarily delayed, forcing us to now take legal steps to pry this document loose."
Officials with the US Department of Defense say it is not outside the chain-of-command for an Army Corps DEIS to be reviewed in Washington. However, no one involved in this type of work can ever recall a DEIS winding up at the Pentagon.
"The continued delay in the release of the DEIS is unconscionable," said Matt Palmer, Executive Director of Clean Power Now, a Cape-based renewable energy advocacy group with over 3,500 members. "The public has been waiting for over 2 years to have their questions about this vitally important project answered. The Department of Defense, which asked to review the completed DEIS very late in the process, should make the document available for immediate release."
The mystery surrounding the delay in the Cape Wind DEIS has only worsened an already tense political issue on the Cape. Rumors about the alleged benefits or liabilities associated with Cape Wind can only be confirmed with the release of the DEIS.
"Some people obviously don't want the findings of three years worth of rigorous reviews by numerous public and private entities to be released to the public, but we at Self-Reliance think that the completed DEIS should be released immediately so everyone can finally become informed about the realistic benefits and impacts of this unprecedented project being proposed for our community," Richard Lawrence of Cape & Islands Self-reliance said. "Everyone involved or interested in the Cape Wind debate should be demanding that this completed document be released for an open and transparent public review."
The Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Defense, and the Department of the Army will now have 20 days to respond to these 10 Freedom of Information Act requests. |
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